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I'm fairly new to 40k, and I'm interested in starting a CSM army. I like the CSM's lore and the appearance of the generic Space Marines. Can anyone give me some advice on where to start and how I should go about growing my army?

Read the fluff on each named type of army (the latest codex with the thousand sons is pretty exciting).
Think about what style of play you like.
Look at the colour styles of the armies you are considering.
Think if you want to create your own chapter with an eye on what army to base it on.

Iron Warriors was always a favorite of mine.
Smart, a little angry, silver with black/yellow hazard stripe, likes siege warfare from either position and big guns.

Black Legion is a good basis to attach cult armies to it since they are Abaddon's army and can be the core.

The upcoming "desolator squad" may be a good start as well as the "start collecting" kit for CSM.
Look at some of the "upgrade packs" if there is a particular army you lean towards that can be modified.

Good luck!

Hi, a friend recently started collecting CSM.

If you elect to begin with the Start Collecting: Chaos Space Marines, you'll get a TAC squad, an HQ, and a Hellbrute.

The next purchase for us is a helldrake and another CSM TAC squad, or the squad that comes with a Chaos Rhino (releasing Jan 7).

The first thing you need to do, is pick a patron God, or remain Undivided.

Then build a Chaos Lord to flavor. (You could go with a Daemin Prince or Sorcerer, but I always start with a Lord)

Then, decide between CSM, Marine Cult Troops, or Cultists as your Troops.

After that, you can fill out Fast and Heavy supports according to taste.

Thanks for all of the information so far, it's been quite helpful.

For troops, I'd prefer to use regular CSMs. Their design looks pretty awesome to me.

You mention you like the chaos lore and the appearance of space marines.

There are lots of different factions within chaos space marine, the fractured Traitor Legions of old, the more recent Chaos Renegades and they exist in a perpetual state of broken alliances and betrayal.

Which faction in the chaos lore particularly captured your interest?

If I were to decide between all of the CSM chapters in terms of lore and appearance, I'd probably choose the Iron Warriors.

Dark Vengeance box could be good starting point, it contains some awesome models and you can always sell/trade dark angel sprues. Some shops can even be nice enough to fix your box to contain double CSM sprues!

Would it be better to purchase the "Start Collecting" CSM set, or Dark Vengeance?

TapedTempest wrote:
If I were to decide between all of the CSM chapters in terms of lore and appearance, I'd probably choose the Iron Warriors.

Shooty Chaos can be a lot of fun, with Forgefiends, Defilers, Predators, Vindicators, and even Helbrutes.

Chaos has access to A LOT of Str 8+ weapons, which is a blessing to shooty armies. Me personally, I almost always run 2 Forgefiends with 2 Hades Autocannons and an Extra Ectoplasma cannon. The're usually backed up by a Soul Grinder (I play Khorne Daemonkin. You can sub them out for a Defiler in non-competitive games. For competitive though Defilers almost never make their points back).

Chaos's big strength is their vehicles. Forgefiends, Maulerfiends, and Heldrakes once per game ca re-roll failed to wounds and armour penetrations. Helbrutes have two nasty formations (one that let's yu deep strike them, and another that lets you shoot the nearest enemy twice) and with the new rules for Predator and Vindicator squadrons they're pretty mean as well.


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TapedTempest wrote:
Would it be better to purchase the "Start Collecting" CSM set, or Dark Vengeance?

For Chaos, Dark Vengeance is a great place to start. With a little paint and some pointy bits you can convert the Dark Angels to Chaos.

Is it "mandatory" to use cultists if your going to play with a CSM army?

TapedTempest wrote:
Is it "mandatory" to use cultists if your going to play with a CSM army?

It's not mandatory, but with how CSM themselves are over priced in the codex it's highly recommended.

Could I make a custom traitor chapter so I could use the new and improved rules from the "Traitor Legions" codex?

Of course. They can be warband of x legion that paint their armor. Go ahead and make a warband of pink night lords and watch your opponent scream in terror.

TapedTempest wrote:
Could I make a custom traitor chapter so I could use the new and improved rules from the "Traitor Legions" codex?

Not really understanding this question but here goes. While the traitor legions indeed exist you are not bound to their color scheme or lore. Most of the legions have broken up into many many smaller warbands. So say you want a custom warband but like the Death Guard special rules. Its not a prioblem. Come up with a color scheme you like and try to stick with the death guard lore as your origin and then go from there. One of the main draws of chaos, to me at least, is the near total freedom the faction brings.

Just thinking how much my answer to this question has changed since about 3 months ago.

The first step is to get acquainted with the rules. There are 4 books you need to play Chaos:

- The BRB
- Codex: Chaos Space Marines, which gives you the basic rules for units
- Traitor's Hate, which gives you the rules for formations
- Traitor Legions, which gives you the special rules for legions

You can buy the books or you can read about them online. There are a lot of people chatting about the last 2 items right now, which may be sufficient.

The second step is to pick a Legion. To be clear, you don't have to pick a legion, but you get some advantages if you do. Death Guard are really hard to kill, Emperor's Children can shoot a lot of stuff, Word Bearers can summon a lot of stuff, Thousand Sons are the best psykers, and all the other legions have their own advantages.

I suggest picking a legion before buying models. Were I starting a Black Legion army, for instance, I would want to buy a lot of Terminator models. Were I starting a Night Lords army, I might not want as many.

Third step is to build your force. My advice is to pick the models you want, not the ones you think look cool. This might sound counter-intuitive, but look down the road a bit. There's nothing more frustrating than having a bunch of really cool looking models you can't use in games. I really think the Possessed models are the coolest looking things in the CSM army, and have not used them in about 5 years.

The legion rules will tell you what kinds of troops to get. For a small army, you will need an HQ and a couple troops to start. If the start collecting boxes work for you, great.

I've played Chaos Marines for damn near a decade now.

Where you need to start. Is one of those amazing Get Started boxes. Hell get two of them. You've two Terminator HQ's 20 marines and 2 Helbrutes.

If you like the look of the generic marines, spikey ornately armored Space Marines? I'd go with one of the undivided legions, which brings me to my next point. The army is a book keeping nightmare. But just get the basic codex and Traitor Legions, and really you're set.

From there you can look at the Warband formation, and think of the units you want to take. All of them are good honestly. I prefer Bikers to raptors. But would run Raptors if I ever made a Khornate or Night Lords army. And I'm always partial to Terminators.

With everything to unlock a Chaos Warband formation, you -should- be docking at at least 1250pts.

I'm gonna direct you to D4Chan's guide

https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Chaos_Space_Marines(7E)
If you want to play Iron Warriors, get the CSM codex and the Legions supplement. Alternatively, begin playing 30k, so you can go full Iron Warrior.

If you go with the fluffy Iron Warriors CSM style, you'll want Havocs, Fortifications, CSMs, and maybe some tanks. Havocs are best when you buy ForgeWorld weapons (specifically autocannons, maaaaybe lascannons) and attach them to CSMs. You do not want Finecast Havocs with one of four different weapons.

I would honestly not recommend the Dark Vengeance kit unless you genuinely want Cultists, a Helbrute, close-combat Chosen, or a non-Terminator Lord. None of these are good choices. Cultists are a better choice than the rest because they're a cheaper Troop tax than CSMs to unlock your HQs. Do you have any particular playstyle in mind?

there is only one way to make a CSM army

-Step 1 buy a tentacle maker or equivalent and a large quantity of non GW green stuff.
-Step 2 buy metal sculpting tools for cheap on ebay or equivalent these tings -> http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__Tr_96HVoZA/S_Ca2r2kJ2I/AAAAAAAACEE/ekdrc3ZUcmM/s400/Sculpting+tools.jpg
-Step 3buy 3-6 cheap secondhand beat up rhino's
-Step 4 buy 1 box of plague bearers for conversion bits and the betrayal of calth set.

Now put it all together and have fun.

try get a dark vengeance starter set its a good place to start you get a rulebook templates and a good starting force for your CSM army

Pick your legion, then, unless it's thousand sons, build a chaos warband from traitors hate / traitor legions along with an auxilary of your choice and you're done. If it is thousand sons, well, I'm sorry for your loss(es). Kiddingnotkidding.

While Dark Vengeance is nice for the cultists, Helbrute and the chosen, that's about it.

The rule book in it will be replaced next year by 8th edition according to rumors.

Also, you can't really convert the Dark Angels to Chaos as they have so much damn Dark Angel bling on them. Yes, I know that Dark Angels are all traitors but that's an arguement for another day.

I would just buy:

1. Codex: Chaos Space Marines
2. Traitor Legions Supplement

Figure out what models, legion, paint scheme, etc you like. Make a few 1,000 and 1500 point lists. Make a few more, think about it, post about it, get feedback,

THEN

3. Buy the new Vehicle + Squad kit: https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Chaos-Space-Marines-Chaos-Desolator-Squad

4. Go from there.

Which CSM legion is best at getting a good bit of CSM troops on the table, with some but not lots of vehicles?

TapedTempest wrote:
Which CSM legion is best at getting a good bit of CSM troops on the table, with some but not lots of vehicles?

Death Guard. But what kind of troops? Basic marines? Cultists? Chosen? Terminators? Or all of the above?

Preferably basic marines and maybe terminators.

TapedTempest wrote:
Preferably basic marines and maybe terminators.

'
yeah death guard'll do fine at that. for a bare bones warband you'll wans 2 squads of chaos marines, 1 squad of chosen, terminators or posessed (proably terminators if you wanna go with a durable foot sloggers set up) 1 squad of some form of fast attack (bikes would be a great choice) and 1 hell brute or havoks squad (a hellbrute would be less optimal but simplier to do)

Are there any others I could consider besides Death Guard?

TapedTempest wrote:
Are there any others I could consider besides Death Guard?

Iron warriors aren't too bad, although you'll really benifit best from them if you toss in some demolishers, emperor's children are also pretty good as you can get em to FNP 4+ if you're willing to pay for Icons, those three legions strike me as the best most obvious choices for foot slogging.

Which would be better, Death Guard or Iron Warriors, for an army that is geared more towards foot slogging CSMs and maybe some decent fluff.

TapedTempest wrote:
Are there any others I could consider besides Death Guard?

If it's all about infantry, Word Bearers. Take a lot of Sorcerers and roll on Malefic. Summon in Daemons to your heart's delight, they get bonuses that make it easier to summon.

If it's all about avoiding vehicles, World Eaters and Black Legion.

World Eaters have a movement bonus of 2d6 inches and a bonus to charge of 3 inches. Troops will move up the board on their own almost as well as they could in a Rhino.

Black Legion has a Speartip detachment that lets units arrive from Deep Strike starting on turn one. If you structure your forces properly, you don't really need vehicles.

Another thought is to look at Forgeworld's Imperial Armor 13 book. It has some things in it Chaos Space Marines can use that give you heavy weapons that would otherwise go on vehicles. For instance: the Rapier Weapons Battery. Take laser destroyers and shoot up opponents from far away.